Waking the Sleeper: From Sarajevo to Ukraine, Marching Unawares into Another World War

SLEEPWALKING AGAIN: SARAJEVO 1914 - UKRAINE 2022

by James Bissett (former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria.)

 

March 27 2022

Ten years ago, the British historian Christopher Clark’s book, “The Sleep Walkers,” described how the leadership of the European powers blundered their way into starting the First World War and causing the death of over fifteen million people. Today we are witnessing another “sleepwalking” tragedy as a war causing death and destruction rages across Ukraine and threatens the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe.

 

 

As in Sarajevo in 1914, the conflict today in Ukraine was unnecessary, and caused by the ineptitude on the part of the US led NATO powers. On the surface the issue seemed to be easily resolved. It centered on the expectation that Ukraine would become a member of NATO, an action opposed by Russia. It is impossible to believe that the Americans and other NATO leaders did not foresee that such an act would be interpreted by the Russians as cause for war. 

 

The coup d’état in Kiev in 2014, engineered by the Americans, that divided the country and led to an eight-year civil war between the pro-Russian eastern Donbas region and the rest of the country, was looked upon by Russia as an attack upon Russia itself.  During these years Ukraine received from the United States billions of dollars’ worth of modern military hard ware, as well as providing training of Ukrainian troops. In turn, the pro-Russian side received military help from Russia. In fact, this prolonged struggle was a prelude to what is happening today in Ukraine.

 

With the failure of any compromise arising out of the Minsk agreement and NATO’s refusal to meet Russia’s demand of a guarantee that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO, and that the NATO missile bases in Poland and Romania be removed, the stage was set for a possible major armed conflict. The probability of this happening and confirmation that Russia had drawn a line in the sand was highlighted by the massing of over one hundred thousand Russian troops along Ukraine’s border.

 

It was during this period that the US led NATO leaders had the chance to prevent the dreadful horrors of the full-scale war taking place in Ukraine today and the added risk of the conflict spreading and developing into a nuclear disaster. To have accepted Russia’s demands would have been in keeping with NATO’s purpose, as anchored in the first article of the NATO treaty- that NATO was a purely defensive organization, and would never use or threaten to use force in the resolution of international disputes, and would always act in accordance with the United Nations Charter. However, as history will record, the US led NATO countries ignored Russia’s demands and, as happened in 1914, the leaders of 2022, “sleep walked” into war. 

 

The failure to assure President Putin that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO was the trigger that convinced the Russian leader that he had to react. However, it was simply one further reason, among many, that convinced Russia that NATO led by the Americans not only could not be trusted but was determined to force regime change in Russia as it had done in a number of other countries.

 

One of the primary concerns faced by Russia was the that NATO had already violated its own treaty by its illegal bombing of Serbia in 1999. The bombing that continued for 78 days and nights was heralded by the western media as a humanitarian act to prevent genocide in Kosovo.

 

All of the NATO countries, with the exception of Greece, participated in this illegal act, that violated international law and the United Nations Charter. The bombing was followed by recognizing the independence of Kosovo without even a referendum. That this illegal act violated the sovereignty of Serbia was simply ignored. The only expression of concern was by President Putin who warned that, he too one day might follow these extraordinary precedents.

 

It was in March 1999, during the bombing of Serbia at NATO’s 50th birthday party in Washington that President Clinton announced a new “Strategic Concept” for NATO. The new “concept” was to modernize NATO and make it ready for the new century. It referred to new functions such as; “conflict prevention, “crisis management,” and “crisis response operations.” 

 

In effect, this new concept transformed NATO from a purely defensive body into an instrument of American foreign and military power. Now NATO could intervene where ever and whenever it so chose to do.

 

At the same birthday party. President Clinton also announced that Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic were to become members of NATO. This broke a promise the Russians believe was made by US President George H Bush that if Russia allowed a united Germany into NATO, then NATO would never expand eastward. 

 

Today, with Russia encircled by NATO memberships’ is it any wonder that President Putin might consider it time to draw a line when it comes to inviting Georgia and Ukraine into the club?

 

The renowned former US Ambassador to Moscow, George F Kennan warned in 1987 that, “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean the American military industrial complex would have to remain substantially unchanged until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.” As it turned out, the Americans didn’t need to find a new adversary they just continued to pretend Russia was still the old Soviet Union.

 

Since the fall of the Berlin wall. American foreign policy has been based on world dominance (“full spectrum dominance.”) In 1992 the Pentagon produced a “Defense Planning Guide” and the strategy laid down in this document explains much of the objectives of US foreign policy in the first two decades of this new century. Here is a relevant quote from this document: 

 

“We endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would be sufficient to generate global power” …and “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed by the former Soviet Union.”

 

When the wall came down and the Soviet Union imploded the world rejoiced with the expectation that the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear Armageddon had ended, Alas, it was not to be. There was no attempt to welcome the new Russia into the family of free nations, no Marshall plan for those former soviets. Russia was continued to be portrayed by the west as a serious threat to world peace and security and as an enemy demanding NATO’s vigilance. The opportunity for the new: “American Century” embodying a “Pax America” was lost. This will be seen by historians as one of the most serious foreign policy mistakes of the 20th century.

 

 The last sentence of Christopher Clark’s book reads, “…the protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.” We have allowed our sleepwalkers to once again involve us in a stupid and needless war. As in 1914 they have been supported by a jingoist media and by the masses who know little of the facts but dare not question the popular narrative.

James "Joe" Bissett is a Canadian former diplomat. He was high commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago and later ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria.